Sponsored Links

Last year, Wisconsin allowed municipalities to ask courts to suspend the driver's licenses of parking scofflaws. Michigan, which used to suspended licenses after drivers accumulated six unpaid tickets, will, effective May 16, drop that number to three.

Illinois can suspend licenses after 10 unpaid tickets. New York and New Jersey also can suspend for unpaid tickets and California can refuse to renew the license of a scofflaw, said Anne Teigen of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"The driver's license has become more and more a hammer the courts use to get people to comply with whatever they need," said Sheila Prior of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

Other states, including New Hampshire, Connecticut and Hawaii, can prevent motorists from renewing a vehicle registration if there are unpaid parking tickets associated with it, Teigen said. Some municipalities will tow or put a restrictive boot on cars belonging to owners with multiple unpaid fines.

The impetus behind the laws is money. The city of Detroit, which is so cash-strapped it had to negotiate a financial rescue with the state last month, is owed more than $30 million in unpaid parking tickets, spokeswoman Naomi Patton said.

"This is one of the tools that municipalities have at their disposal to go after parking scofflaws," said Fred Schaible, the chief of staff to Michigan State Sen. Dave Hildenbrand, R-Lowell, who sponsored the bill. "This just says instead of six, you can only have three."

Different states use different numbers of tickets to trigger the offense, but the results are similar. Most states typically give the motorist time to pay the tickets, but if they don't, the license is suspended or it can't be renewed.

States usually charge a license reinstatement fee on top of the unpaid tickets.

Prior said her group, which represents departments of motor vehicles across the USA and Canada, has studied the issue for more than three years and worries that such suspensions mean fewer officers on the road keeping motorists safe.

"They are in court testifying to something that has nothing to do with highway safety," Prior said.

Prior notes that unpaid parking tickets aren't the only offense unrelated to driving that can prompt a suspended license. Federal law requires the suspension of the licenses of drivers who haven't paid child support, and other states impose the penalty for a variety of things. Prior said 23 states suspend for stealing gasoline and 15 states suspend teens who are truant from school.

Contributing: Wisely also reports for the Detroit Free Press

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted | Updated

USA TODAY is now using Facebook Comments on our stories and blog posts to provide an enhanced user experience. To post a comment, log into Facebook and then "Add" your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box. To find out more, read the FAQ and Conversation Guidelines.